Murder defendant describes tense confrontation in bar

Published: Monday, September 30, 2013 at 07:11 PM.

Wade said he didn’t want to make a scene inside and he told Andrews they should go outside. As soon as the two got outside, Wade turned around and Andrews pulled out a gun and cocked it, Wade said.

Walking backwards with his hands in the air, Wade said he told Andrews “I ain’t got no gun. Put the gun down.” He said close to a dozen other of Andrews’ friends came out and started walking behind Andrews.

“All of them were saying, ‘Shoot that (n-word), O.D.,” Wade said. “O.D.” was Andrews’ nickname.

Wade said after turning a corner, Andrews pointed the gun at him and held him against a wall. All the while, the other men behind Andrews “had their hand in their shirt or pocket,” and Wade “figured they had guns,” he said.

The only thought going through his mind was self-defense, Wade said.

“The only thing I could think of was: protect yourself at all times,” he said. “I thought, ‘I gotta grab the gun.’”

He said he knocked the gun from Andrews’ hand and heard shots from somewhere around him. On the ground, he hit Andrews twice in the face with his fist before jumping up to grab the gun— which Andrews appeared to be reaching for, Wade said. Wade said he shot Andrews two or three times, and then attempted to shoot the ground around Andrews to make the crowd around them disperse.

GRAHAM — The defendant in a first-degree murder trial said he didn’t have a weapon on him the night he is accused of fatally shooting another man.

Jurors heard from 32-year-old Lemario Deon Wade and his friends and family Monday during the final day of testimony in the trial. Wade, of Mill Creek Road in Orange County, is charged in the May 2, 2010, death of 23-year-old Demarray Deray Andrews of Hillsborough, who was shot 11 times near the corner of Fourth and Clay streets in Mebane after leaving The Red Diamond Sports Club.

The case was described during opening statements by Assistant District Attorney Lori Wickline, as being “about a love triangle” among Wade, Andrews and Shannel Palmer, the woman both men dated.

Wade said earlier in the evening of May 1, 2010, he had gone to his cousin Brandon Wade’s house for a “fight party,” to watch a boxing match on TV. After leaving there around 1:15 a.m. May 2, he said he and others had planned to go to the grand opening of 778 Sports Lounge on Graham Hopedale Road, but were turned away in the parking lot because the bar was at capacity. After riding by another club that appeared from the outside to be empty, Wade said he and the others following him in their cars decided to go home for the night.

Wade said he was driving his mother’s green Mercedes-Benz and had to drop off two other people before going home. He said after dropping off the second person, who lived in Mebane, he decided to go by The Red Diamond and didn’t know that Palmer or Andrews were there.

Upon walking in the club, Wade said he saw Andrews in the crowd.

“I was looking through the club and saw Demarray’s head pop up in the middle,” Wade said. “I looked around and saw all eyes on us.”

Wade said he didn’t want to make a scene inside and he told Andrews they should go outside. As soon as the two got outside, Wade turned around and Andrews pulled out a gun and cocked it, Wade said.

Walking backwards with his hands in the air, Wade said he told Andrews “I ain’t got no gun. Put the gun down.” He said close to a dozen other of Andrews’ friends came out and started walking behind Andrews.

“All of them were saying, ‘Shoot that (n-word), O.D.,” Wade said. “O.D.” was Andrews’ nickname.

Wade said after turning a corner, Andrews pointed the gun at him and held him against a wall. All the while, the other men behind Andrews “had their hand in their shirt or pocket,” and Wade “figured they had guns,” he said.

The only thought going through his mind was self-defense, Wade said.

“The only thing I could think of was: protect yourself at all times,” he said. “I thought, ‘I gotta grab the gun.’”

He said he knocked the gun from Andrews’ hand and heard shots from somewhere around him. On the ground, he hit Andrews twice in the face with his fist before jumping up to grab the gun— which Andrews appeared to be reaching for, Wade said. Wade said he shot Andrews two or three times, and then attempted to shoot the ground around Andrews to make the crowd around them disperse.

Defense attorney Robert Collins asked Wade what he thought would have happened if Andrews had gotten the gun back.

“Oh, he was going to kill me,” Wade said.

When asked by Collins, Wade said he had carried no gun or weapon of his own to the club.

Randy Wade Sr., the defendant’s uncle and the brother of his late father Skip Wade, testified about going over to his brother’s Mill Creek Road house after receiving a call from his son, Brandon Wade, that Lemario Wade had been “in a shootout” that night.

He described his nephew as afraid and extremely shaken up that night. Randy Wade said Lemario Wade was running around and slinging his arms, and when Randy was finally able to grab hold of Lemario, his nephew broke down in tears.

“He said, ‘Big Randy, Big Randy, I didn’t have a choice. He stuck a gun to my head,’” Randy Wade told the jury.

The defense rested its case. Attorneys will give their closing arguments to the jury Tuesday at 10 a.m. in the superior courtroom of the Alamance County Criminal Courts building.